Gordano Messaging Suite: Early, Current Support for Linux Platform

And Linus Just Wanted to Make a Better Minux...

March 6, 2003

By
Brian Proffitt

It's sometimes interesting to see how things turn out. Many's the time
when the original plans made by businesses turn into something
completely different and unexpected.

Such was the case for a small UK software sales firm known as Internet
Shopper, Ltd., which was founded back in 1994. Internet Shopper was to
be an online sales company. But somewhere along the way, the company,
which now operates as Gordano, Ltd., became one of the premier
Internet messaging firms on the planet.

The story actually begins not with Linux, but with Windows NT. NT 3.1
had just been released as company founder Brian Dorricott was trying
to build an internal messaging server for Internet Shopper. He had
decided to write it himself because of a growing dissatisfaction with
what was out there at the time.

Initially, Dorricott attempted to get his new messaging server up and
running on UNIX, but was stymied to do so. So, "we had to shift to
NT," Dorricott said.

Curiously, some of the company's clientele began to take note of
Internet Shopper's internal messaging server and began to inquire
about obtaining it for themselves. Thus NTMail was born--a birth that
heralded great success for the British company.

If you're wondering what any of this has to do with Linux, you may be
surprised to learn that the company that got it start with a Windows
NT product is now shifting more and more to Linux and UNIX-based
platforms. When it ported it NTMail product to Linux in 1998, Gordano
became one of the earliest commercial software vendors for the free
operating systems that was just barely on the horizon for most
propriatary software developers.